Click to play: Earth Intruders by Bjork
Download: ?media_id=D0B0EB345A854E0E8877C856070BE444&sitename=b12325794706179301
There was once a shogun from 1680-1710 named Tokugawa Tsunayoshi that was nicknamed the “Dog Shogun.” Born in the year of the dog, he felt obligated to protect dogs. Although believed to be influenced from his mental retardation (a result of generations of inbreeding), he released Edicts on Compassion for Living Things (Shoruiawareminorei), which protected stray and diseased dogs.
But towards the end of his reign, the 50,000 dogs in Edo overran the streets. People were executed for wounding dogs, dogs of higher ranks were dressed up and when walked down the streets, were given higher honor than most humans, and they were fed fish and rice, bought with the money from taxpayers. Ironically enough, when Tokugawa first came to reign, he ordered the suicide of many samurais only to demonstrate his power as shogun.
At a certain point, a line must be drawn. I see parading a dog through the streets, forcing people to part way for him and bow down at his presence, ridiculous. Equally as ridiculous is ordering people to kill themselves in order to demonstrate power. But why don’t I see these as ridiculous when the roles are reversed?
Bjork’s song “Earth Intruders” reminds me of Hopkin’s “God’s Grandeur”:
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. (375)
Centuries later, humans are still not part of the “mysterious and ungovernable order of nature” (381). We are, as Bjork puts it, earth intruders. Being human, I personally feel this disconnection between nature-perhaps because I grew up learning Genesis’s belief that humans have “dominion over the beasts” (382). Through this, I’ve never felt as if I’m a part of nature.
Miyazaki’s film, Princess Mononoke (1997), explores the intrusion of humans into the natural world-dominated by gods in the forms of animals. Like Hopkin’s connection of God and nature, “God, lover of souls, swaying considerate scales,/ Complete thy creature dear O where it fails,/ Being mighty a master, being a father and fond,” Miyazaki gives nature a other-worldly aspect (376). In the film, iron industrialization creates a “nameless god of rage and hate” that takes over the animal gods, forcing them to run through villages and destroy them. A boy defending his village is touched by the demon, which curses his arm. The curse gives him strength, but as a result has the ability to easily kill (and the curse is affected by life-it is activated by seeing the beauty of nature and has an impulse to destroy it). His journey is to stop the curse from spreading, preventing hate to cloud his eyes.
The story explores the idea that humans can live peacefully with nature and animals, but unlike reality, they are given means to defend themselves. However, it is ultimately a human that saves nature from mankind, giving a mixed moral at the end of the story. We have the ability to preserve or destroy nature.
However, ignorance is viewed almost as an excuse in many occasions, “…these bloodied animals were probably not victims of cruelty. Cruelty implies a desire to inflict pain and thus presupposes an empathetic appreciation of the suffering of the object of cruelty” (382). In my P1, I discuss Lewis Carroll’s belief that it is intent rather than act that is inhumane. I agree with this, but there must be a point where ignorance cannot be enough to say “Oh, its ok.”
